A few photos

It's been far too long since the last time I posted photos. Roan has been cute as a button lately. This photo is after a recent trip to Target where we bought her a new bike helmet for the hand-me-down bike trailer a friend gave us. While there we invested $2 in the ball you see her holding. And you can tell by the look on her face it was money well spent. She thought Christmas had come early!

Here are some photos from the current visit with Lolli & G-Pop (known as Pop or PopPop by Roan). We did a burger cookout in the backyard one lovely evening. Summer is winding down in Denver and I for one am sad to see it go. We no doubt have a long stretch of beautiful, if slightly cooler weather ahead of us, but now that Arwen got a whole house fan installed I'm finally enjoying tank top weather.

While Lolli & Pop were here we took a day trip to Boulder. We went for a nature walk with incredible views, had lunch at the tea house, and spent the afternoon with Andye and McKenna, now 11 months. Here we are dipping our toes in the creek that runs through town.

Here is Jen with Andye and McKenna. It was such a picture perfect day!

Here are Lolli & Pop at a gorgeous overlook on our nature walk.

Roan is apparrently a budding geologist. She is fairly obsessed with rocks. We could hardly persuade her to toddle down the trail there in Boulder. She just wanted to pick up every rock she saw or rub gravel all over her clothes and hair. Here she is taking a rest on one of her beloved rocks with Aunt Jen.

And here's our big girl going on our walk with Pop and Aunt Jen. She likes to say "hands, hands" to let you know she wants you to take her hand. Often this leads to her going completely rubber legged in the hopes that you'll swing her by the wrists.

We had to say goodbye to Pop and Lolli today. It was a really nice visit filled with all kinds of fun stuff. Which is nice because the last couple of times they've come to visit we've been so exhauseted/ overwhelmed/ overworked that we hardly left the house or the neighborhood. This time was so much fun it's going to get a follow up post with the other half of the pictures. In the meanwhile you can enjoy this video of Roan with her ball (and no, I don't make a habit of putting a helmet on her just to play outside!).

So this is wild...

I will post photos soon. August has been a crazy month, and it ain't over yet baby. Right now we have Lolli and G-Pop here for a visit, and that's been really fun.

But I didn't want to let a day go by without capturing something so strange that happened last night. After a long day out and about seeing the sights in Boulder, Aunt Jen and Roan were drawing some pretty pictures with her jumbo crayons. Jen spelled Roan's name out in letters and then said the letters. ONCE. Jen then said "R - O - " and Roan finished "A - N." We all looked at each other thinking Did she just really do that? Then a few minutes later as Roan was distractedly putting crayons into the container and taking them out of the container she did it unprompted all by herself. "R - O - A - N." (She says her Rs "aww"; it's so cute!) That seemed really crazy. Jen also wrote Sasha's name down and she said some of its letters as well. Then an hour or two later as she was sitting in the bathtub, I used one of her tub crayons to write her name on the wall. I didn't spell it out for her, and she didn't take much notice of it at the time. She played happily in the water with her cups and her rubber duckies and drew a little on the tub with the soap crayons. Then at the end of the bath as we were getting ready to get her out, I asked her to help me clean the crayons off the tub. She looked at what I had written earlier and said completely unprompted "R - O - A - N."

Now is that weird or what? She is spelling her name and she is not even 18 months! It actually seemed slightly spooky to me. I haven't been working at all on the alphabet with her. I can only assume this is something she's picked up at school. I do not plan on sharing this latest development with the neighborhood mommies either; they already refer to her somewhat self-consciously as Baby Einstein. One asked me for tips and pointers on how I have gotten her vocabulary so high. It must be all the hours we keep her locked in her room going through flashcards. "You can eat as soon as you say antidisestablishmentarianism, Roan."

No but seriously, people might think I'm hell bent on getting her to read by age two or become the next Doogie Howser, but I'm not. From the day she was born I have told myself that we all have different sets of gifts that make us who we are, and I want to honor them in her. It's important to me to encourage Roan at whatever she's good at, whether it's building train sets or making art or reading. Whether it's an interest I share or not.

And anyway last night could have been some kind of a fluke. I can't help but feel though that Roan is a very bright little cookie though. Not only because of her large vocabulary or the way she is now stringing two words together at a time. But also because she has been so physically advanced from the begining - sitting up, crawling and walking early. She's been going in the potty every morning - just pee; poop is still giving her trouble. And she's a complete social butterfly, saying "Hi!" to every person we pass at the grocery store and going on hugging sprees with her little friends at daycare. It makes me wonder whether we're doing enough to challenge her and keep her interested in learning.

I guess you can drive yourself crazy with that though, and if you're not careful end up being the mom shuttling her between chess club and math tutoring at age 5. Don't want to be that mom. And anyway, just because you get a bright start doesn't mean your life is all roses. There's the friend of a friend who got a free ride to Yale and ended up as a clerk at a bookstore. Or that evil little genius on CSI who conspired with her brother to murder a cheerleader in her high school. Yes I know CSI is only for pretend, but she had a line in that episode that went something to the effect of "When I started spelling words at 18 months, my whole life changed."

Roan is 16 months, by the way.

Home again home again

... jiggity jigg. I got a lot accomplished on my trip to Houston but boy oh boy is it nice to be back home in Denver. Especially since things have cooled off this week. Temperatures have been in the 80's mostly - beautiful and sunny. Tonight we even got a refreshing little rain shower to cool things down a little more.

Way better than the weather though is just being back with my sweeties. I missed them all so much! Predictably, Roan seems bigger. She seems skinnier too - I think she's growing. I don't have long to chat tonight - I want to get upstairs and snuggle a few minutes with Arwen. It's UFC Fight Night - yippie!

But I did want to at least say a quick hello. Today was Roan's last day with Lindsay, the best nanny the world has ever known. Roan doesn't know it yet but she about this time next week she will really be missing Lindsay. She snapped these pictures of Roan today in her high chair. Frozen fruit has been a staple at our house. Between her teething and the heat it's a big hit. Blueberries are her favorite. She calls them "boo boos."

More later... goodnight!